Formula One Companies (Formula 1) is responsible for the promotion of the FIA Formula One World Championship, a series of auto racing events in 21 countries where professional drivers race single-seat cars on custom tracks or through city courses in pursuit of the World Championship title. Formula 1 racing has more than 500 million global fans and generated $1.8 billion in total revenue in 2017.

To accelerate its cloud transformation, Formula 1 is moving the vast majority of its infrastructure from on-premises data centers to AWS and standardizing on AWS’s machine-learning and data-analytics services. Formula 1 will work with AWS to enhance its race strategies, data tracking systems, and digital broadcasts through a wide variety of AWS services—including Amazon SageMaker, AWS Lambda, AWS's event-driven serverless computing service, and AWS analytics services—to deliver new race metrics that will change the way fans and teams experience racing.

Formula 1 is a data-driven sport: During each race, 120 sensors on each car generate 3 GB of data, and 1,500 data points are generated each second. Using Amazon SageMaker, Formula 1’s data scientists are training deep-learning models with 65 years of historical race data to extract critical race performance statistics, make race predictions, and give fans insight into the split-second decisions and strategies adopted by teams and drivers.

By streaming real-time race data to AWS using Amazon Kinesis, Formula 1 can capture and process key performance data for each car during every twist and turn of the Formula 1 circuits. Then, by deploying advanced machine learning via Amazon SageMaker, Formula 1 can pinpoint how a driver is performing and whether or not drivers have pushed themselves over the limit. By sharing these insights through television broadcasts and digital platforms, Formula 1 allows fans access to the inner workings of their favorite teams and drivers. Formula 1 has also selected AWS Elemental Media Services to power its video asset workflows.

“For our needs, AWS outperforms all other cloud providers, in speed, scalability, reliability, global reach, partner community, and breadth and depth of cloud services available,” said Pete Samara, director of innovation and digital technology at Formula 1. “By leveraging Amazon SageMaker and AWS’s machine-learning services, we are able to deliver these powerful insights and predictions to fans in real time. We are also excited that the Formula 1 Motorsports division will run high-performance compute workloads in a scalable environment on AWS. This will significantly increase the number and quality of the simulations our aerodynamics team can run as we work to develop the new car design rules for Formula 1.”